


Two Kids and Two Cats

by Internpup



Category: Primeval
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Dark, Character Death, Drug Addiction, F/M, Homelessness, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 13:26:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Internpup/pseuds/Internpup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU where Abby and Connor are two homeless youth, and there are no dinosaurs (yet). ] </p><p>Abby and Connor return to London and find the world they ran away from hasn't changed. Cutter and Stephen are still trapped in their abusive past, and a close friend of Connor's has died under mysterious circumstances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Kids and Two Cats

**Two Kids and Two Cats**

Abby awoke, wondering at first why it was so very dark, and so uncomfortably cold. She snuggled closer to Connor for warmth. His quiet breathing told her he was fast asleep. What had woken her? She wondered, listening for footsteps approaching their little clearing under the stars. There was no sound.

  
She twitched as she felt a drop of cold rain on her face. “Oh, bugger!” she swore, as she felt another drop, and another. “Connor! Get up! It’s raining!”

  
She climbed over him towards their bags, trying to find the tarp in the dark, unwilling to search first for the torch, as the rain steadily increased in volume. Before they could get the tarp over themselves their clothes and belongings had been soaked. In the faint yellow glow of a distant gas station, their two wet cats were looking at them accusingly from the ends of their leashes as they perched on top of the backpacks, fur fluffed up for warmth.

  
They were camped on the edge of London, having been dropped off by the highway exit by some kind strangers who had given them a ride from Bristol. It had been so late that they had decided to sleep for the night out here, and go find their friends in London proper tomorrow. It had seemed so clear when they had bedded down…

  
The two of them were curled up together, taking turns trying to sleep on the other’s lap since there wasn’t room for both of them and the cats to lie down at the same time.

  
“What are we even doing out here, Connor?” Abby asked miserably, wishing they were safe indoors, anywhere at all but here.  
Connor didn’t have an answer. They had left London in the hopes that leaving the city would leave their problems behind, but everywhere was the same. The only difference was that they had no friends out in the wide world, but they had friends in London. Dysfunctional friends, for the most part, but they were as close to family as Connor and Abby had.

**************

  
Cutter had been woken by a pounding on his door. God knew what time it was, but it was certainly far too early. He tripped over something in the half-light that filtered in through the closed curtains as he made his way slowly down the hall. By daylight the house looked worse than it did at night. He momentarily regretted letting it get to this point. When Helen had been here, the house had always been spotless. He had tried to keep it that way at first, in the belief she would return at any moment and be upset that he had slouched while she was away. That belief had faded over the years, but never quite extinguished.

  
“Yes, yes! I’m coming!” He called, as the pounding recommenced. “Bloody racket…” Finally he opened the door, to the relieved faces of two wet travelling kids and their drowned-looking cats. Cutter frowned. “Well aren’t you two a sight.” He said, “You disappear without telling anyone, and roll back here expecting to be welcome?”

  
Connor looked uncertain. “We’re sorry.” He said quietly. “We just…. Needed to get away for a while.”

  
Abby shivered, impatient. “Just let us in, all right? It’s bloody freezing out here! Lecture us later, ok?”

  
“You bet your sweet arse I will.” Cutter opened the door the rest of the way, having to shove it hard to get it all the way open, so blocked was it by random detritus. His gruff greeting belied the smile that he allowed while they climbed past. He had missed them.

  
The sun had set by the time the visitors had dried out, caught up on their sleep, and felt halfway human. Cutter was moving around in the kitchen, trying to scrape up food for all of them, though they had already begun to pass around the vodka that Abby had brought, so if food didn’t happen, it was no disaster. Stephen was playing with Sid and Nancy on the couch. The two cats loved him. All animals loved him. Abby took a gulp of the vodka before passing it to Connor. She watched Stephen with a feeling bordering on anger.

  
Five years ago, Stephen had been recording grizzly sign in the Canadian Yukon when he had accidentally startled a mother bear with her young cubs. They said he had been lucky to come through alive, but not lucky enough to leave that country whole. The bear had bitten down on his shoulder and dragged him nearly 300 feet from the trail. The joint in his shoulder was badly splintered, his clavicle broken in three places, the muscles shredded and nerves cut. It had taken his coworkers an hour to reach him, and it was three more hours before they could get a medical helicopter to such a remote location.

  
He’d come home to England to recover, where they had prescribed him powerful pain medication and intense physiotherapy to regain use of his arm and hand. Somewhere along the line, the pain pills had become more important to him than the physiotherapy, and he’d stopped going. Then the pills became more important than pretty much everything. That was the man Abby knew. The other Stephen, the man who was in control of his life, now only existed in her mind.

  
Abby imagined him before his accident, out in the African veldt, or the forests of Northern Canada, tracking lions and wolves for days before wrestling them to the ground by hand to tag them for science. Something like that, anyways…. It had been what she had wanted to do since she was a little girl, though her thing had always been reptiles, not big game. The closest she had ever come was working at a pet store for a few months. He had years of experience in the field, and he had let it all slip away. Sometimes it made her angry, that he had what she never could, and still ended up in the same hopeless place.

  
Cutter and Stephen had lived together for as long as Abby and Connor had known them. According to Connor, they had been living together as a family when Cutter’s ex-wife disappeared. Cutter sometimes spoke of her when he got drunk and sentimental, and the stories were never pleasant. She had hurt him so profoundly, yet he was still desperately in love with her. Abby couldn’t account for such powerful love for anyone so cruel and manipulative except to label it Stockholm syndrome.

  
Stephen was less under her spell, and if he was in the dark, volatile moods he got when he was in pain, without his medication, he would not hold his tongue on the subject of Helen. He had started as Cutter’s lover, and ended up just Helen’s tool to hurt her husband.

  
Tonight, however, was a happy night. Connor and Abby were happy to be back, and Steven and Cutter enjoyed their company as a break from their self-imposed isolation. There was enough booze to go around, and sometime during the night, the rain let up and a beer and crisps run was embarked on by a more sober member of the cadre. Sid and Nancy were dry now, and purred together on top of a bookshelf, watching their hapless owners celebrating. Everyone was warm, dry, safe, alive, and home. It was a good night.

************

  
Abby groaned, opening her eyes. The light was back. It must be day. She was on the couch, the two cats curled up against her. She had a pounding headache, and was in desperate need of some water. Dragging herself to the kitchen, she looked around for a clean-enough glass. Eventually finding one, she filled it with water from the tap and took small sips, letting her stomach settle and headache reduce a tiny bit as she drank. Steven had passed out on the easy chair, and Connor and Cutter had wandered off somewhere. She slowly made her way to the window and peered out through a gap in the curtains. The rain had stopped. Her phone said it was noon. Still early. She had time to visit her worker before he closed shop for the day. She fed and watered the cats, then dug around in her pack for some cleaner clothes. Once changed, she quietly slipped out the door. Nobody would notice she was gone for a few hours, and wouldn’t worry when they did.

************

  
Lester rubbed his temples. The frustration of his job was getting to him, as it often did this time of day. It was nearing three now, and he was looking forward to going home and having a quiet dinner with his family in the order and tranquillity that was his home. The chaos that he lived vicariously through his clients was exhausting. He could not imagine living these lives, even for a day.

  
The worst ones were of course the people who were just like him, who tried so very hard to keep their lives in order, but repeatedly found that some outside force destroyed their house of cards again and again and again. Lester could see his own panic reflected in these eyes, and on his weaker days it shook him. Many of his clients had once held positions much like his own, and entertained the illusion that their job was secure. And it had been, until it wasn’t.

  
And now, they came to him for aid, and he gave them what the government allowed, a meagre living with a mountain of shame attached. The jobless marched to the jobs office every day, reading the newspaper over and over to fill their government-mandated hours. Single mothers sat at home in crumbling flats, unable to qualify for day care, and so unable to get a part-time job to support themselves and fill their lonely hours.  
A government hatchet-man indeed.

  
It wasn’t all bad, though. “Abby. Do sit down.” Lester waved to the chair in front of his desk. The girl was looking tired, but healthy, sipping a coffee. She sat, and offered him a small smile.

  
Lester sorted through the files in his drawer. He pulled hers out of the ‘Of Concern’ category. “You had us worried for a while, Abby. You were gone for almost two months. If Becker hadn’t heard you two were going walkabout, we would have reported you missing.”

  
The police wouldn’t have cared. She thought. They would have been glad to have two less homeless kids to worry about. “Sorry. It was kind of spontaneous, yeah?” She warmed her hands around her coffee cup.

  
“I’m glad you’re all right.” Lester responded. “Are you still with Connor?”

  
“Yeah, he’s still my mate. We just travel together, we’re not, together together.” She clarified. “It’s complicated.”

  
The social worker nodded, taking notes. “I see. Where are you staying?”

  
“With some friends. Its just for a bit. Too damn cold now to sleep outside.”

  
“Quite right. There was a death from exposure just last week down on Fleet St. Young man, about your age. Name of Duncan.”

  
“Oh shit...” Abby covered her mouth in horror. “Kind of round? Always wore sort of a cap?”

  
“Yes.” Lester nodded, frowning. Duncan had also been one of his cases. The young man had been smart as a whip, but so many were. He had been beaten up for the probably ten pounds he had on him, and frozen to death in the alley before anyone found him. “Did you know him?”

  
“No…. not really. He was one of Connor’s old mates. I met him once or twice…” She said. How could she tell Connor that his best friend was dead? He’d already lost Tom, and now Duncan too.

  
“Are you here to pick up your cheques?” Lester asked. She had back-welfare from the months she was away, which would probably allow her and Connor to live luxuriously for a little while.

  
She nodded silently, and he pulled out the appropriate forms for her to sign before he could release them to her. Once that was done, she thanked him and left. He filed her name in a new category. “One more accounted for.” He said, before closing the drawer. One more person was alive and healthy, living as best they could. That was one minor bright spot in his day.


End file.
